


the face changes, the man remains the same

by Trillian_Astra



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 04:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/744313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trillian_Astra/pseuds/Trillian_Astra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for mockyrfears's Daemon Multifandom ficathon.</p><p>prompt: Doctor Who- the Doctor's face changes, but his daemon stays the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the face changes, the man remains the same

There are two challenges a young Gallifreyan must face. One is looking into the Untempered Schism. The other is to endure separation from one’s daemon.

The boy runs from the first, and bears the second in stony silence. When it is over he holds his owl-daemon close and swears that they will never be so far apart again.

*

The first things Barbara notices on entering the strange box are these: first, the box is somehow larger on the inside; second, there is a large snowy owl perched on a hatstand that is looking at her in an amused fashion; third, the old man bent over the… desks? tables?... around the central pillar.

*

Jamie’s vole-daemon cowers back against him when she sees the owl. The Doctor smiles. “There’s no need to be afraid. I’m the Doctor, and this is Lux. It’s going to be OK.”

*

The scientists that UNIT employs have small, nimble daemons. Lizards, rodents, the occasional monkey. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is used to daemons like that, and the the daemons of the soldiers, like his own Dulcia, a collie.

He is not used to distinguished-looking gentlemen in opera capes arriving on his doorstep, and apparently under his jurisdiction, with large owl-daemons on their shoulders. But when he sees this strange man ‘the Doctor’ working away, with the owl adding suggestions , he allows himself a brief smile.

*

“It’s him, Sarah Jane, really,” Lux says.

Sarah Jane frowns. Can this strange man really be the Doctor that she knows? She looks across at Lux, still the same familiar owl-shape.

“How does this work? His face changes but you don’t?”

“Regeneration,” the owl says. “The essence of him doesn’t change, he’s still really the same man. So I stay the same, too.”

*

“Agh!” Nyssa cried out when she saw Lux. “What is that bird doing here?”

Tegan laughed. The Doctor was busy showing Adric something, so she explained. “That’s just Lux, the Doctor’s daemon. Don’t they have daemons on your planet?”

“No… are they always owls?”

“Oh, not at all. They can be any animal or bird. This is Lia,” she said, as a small, brightly coloured frog emerged from underneath the collar of her blouse.

*

Lux had seen the Doctor go through many changes of face and personality, and had endured many of his more interesting fashion choices.

She still didn’t know what he had been thinking of when he chose that ridiculous rainbow coat. Regeneration had come as a positive blessing that time.

*

The Doctor had his nose buried in a book, reading fast. “Lux, keep an eye on them, would you?”

The snowy owl left her perch at his side and came to rest on the back of a chair on the other side of the room.

Ace and her monkey-daemon Lennox scowled in unison.

*

Fitz looked up in wonder as he stepped inside the TARDIS. His mouse-daemon Alma peeked out of his shirt pocket, eyes wide. Then she saw the owl and vanished back inside.

“What’s wrong?” the Doctor said.

“Alma,” he indicated his pocket. “Not such a fan of owls.”

*

He stumbled into the TARDIS, smelling acrid smoke and knowing that parts of the ship were burning.

Lux barely managed to follow him, collapsing into his arms, feathers stained with soot.

(Later they meet a girl with blonde hair and a lynx-daemon, and she helps them heal.)

*

Rose is lying on a field of apple-scented grass on New Earth, with Lux flying in circles overhead to stretch her wings and the Doctor next to her and Marin, her lynx, lying stretched out in the sun nearby. She closes her eyes and wishes that it could be like this all the time.

*

The night that Amelia Pond, age seven-and-a-bit, met the Doctor, Pandar was a dragonfly with shimmering wings perched on her shoulder.

Twelve years later, when Amy found the same Doctor wandering around her house, he’d settled as a wildcat.

That was probably why the Doctor didn’t realise it was her. She knocked him out with a cricket bat, and the snowy owl at his side collapsed, and Pandar said, “That’s the same owl that was with the Raggedy Doctor.”

“What? No, it can’t be…”

“It is, I’m sure.”

Amy went to her room and looked through the drawers of her desk, searching for her old drawings. She found one that had her, and Pandar, and the Raggedy Doctor, and a big white bird next to him.

“I told you so,” Pandar said.

“Yeah, yeah, alright...” She went back to the stairs, where the still-quite-Raggedy Doctor, and the owl, had apparently woken up.


End file.
